“Young Front” activists tells about incarceration conditions in Akrestsin jail

Incarceration conditions at the Centre for Offenders’ Isolation are equated to torture by inmates.

A “Young Front” activist Uladzimir Yaromenak told Human Rights Activists against Torture website about the incarceration conditions there.

- Tell us about incarceration conditions.

- The conditions do not change year after year: rats, lice. Rats are rather big, they feel like as if they owned the place. They run away reluctantly, only when you throw something into them. They steal bread, table-napkins. A prisoner with lice was thrown into our cell once. We found out that only when we saw him scratching. We asked to take him into the delousing station, but it is closed on weekends. So we sit there with lice till Monday. It could not be said for sure, whether putting a person with lice is done to exert pressure on other prisoners, or it just happens so, but it certainly creates discomfort.

- What was the temperature in the cell?

- It was not very cold there this time. Among other things, it was because windows were not open. The air extraction system was not working. The air was very close. We were taken for a walk two times over the 18 days I was imprisoned.

- Is medical assistance provided?

- I found myself in the remand prison in Akrestsin Street with a cold, but the medical assistant said that they had no drugs at all. They gave me aspirin several times, which is a local cure-all for all diseases.

- To your mind, could it be called torture, inhuman and humiliating treatment?

- Yes, sure. These conditions are totally inhuman. That is not the only question. One of our colleagues had a sinusitis. He had terrible aches, aggravation was threatening, but prisoners refused to call in ambulance. No assistance was provided to him. I understand that not everything depends on the administration of the remand prison. The do not have enough money, funds for renovation. They do not have medicines, and ask relatives to bring them. But they could have called in an ambulance.